The power of ordinary man
The old school of journalism in which one of the major fears was that you will not be objective is coming to the end. The so called system “Search for a subject, contact the opposite sides and write the story” is also finished. Thanks to Internet and especially to social networks, story has become a cake that has to be shared with many and only that kind can be eaten.
And it is not easy to share. Most of us don’t like to share the cake and that someone changes our beautiful recipe that we used for decades.
The space is totally open now and it has never been easier to publish piece of something. But it seems to me that today it is very difficult to produce good journalist story. Maybe it is because the role of editor is changing: our audience becomes editor.
Trying to be as much as objective, impartial and professional, we journalist have forgotten that audience likes to connect information to a person who expose it. In the sea of supervisors, heads, editors, political and other pressures, information on the Balkans, and I suppose in most of the world, change on their way to the final release. The public used to be just a consumer with little or no opportunity to influence and change system of information publishing and exchange.
But now, it can.
Although social networks in the Balkans have become popular in 2007, the real revolution in information exchange happened last year in Kosovo when young Student Stefan Zivkovic began to report about the movement of armies and riots during 2011 Kosovo clashes. His twitter profile with description “the ordinary man on this planet” became so followed and popular that large commercial media start to use his information in news.
How a 17 year boy with no journalistic professional experience acquired enormous attention and public confidence during one of the most important ethnic conflict in the Balkans in the last few years?
How is possible that journalist team of Public Broadcasting Service of Serbia (RTS) could not provide such detailed and accurate information as this young man?
It is happening - the power of common citizen to provide influential information.
And all of us involved in the media industry are confused, burdened by the old system of discovering truth that didn’t teach us what will happen when consumers become editors. Example of how this system, here in the Balkans, was misused is the bloody war that was prepared by the media incitement. Those who used to create that system unfortunately are still alive. Many journalists who were deeply involved in false media reporting which (non)directly caused many victims during Yugoslavia breakdown and, which is worse they are still holding information and media machinery in their dirty hands in every newborn state. How long, we will see, but it is obvious that panic is present.
The burden of responsibility and accountability that internet social networks bring is heavy. Those sensitive spaces automatically exclude everyone who should not be present there. Even if it is little bit chaotic and not defined, social media partly provide freedom. Regarding absolute truth, we will wait little more, maybe forever.
I think this is the golden age of journalism. Stories are waiting for us. Technology allows us to be well informed anytime, anywhere.
We need knowledge, courage and willingness to step into the circle of information but we must never forget, no matter how far the technology can reach, to make the circle you must have the center.
There will always be need for someone who will stand at the center, on equal distance from each point and observe it from all angles. The journalist is that center.
April 13, 2012
Stevan Stancic
